For Such a Time (41 page)

Again he inspected the ground, shuffling his feet through clods of wet dirt in his path. “I think he will make a good papa.”

Hadassah blinked back tears. “I’m certain he’ll be happy to hear it.”

The shelter of thick pine stood only a few meters away. Hadassah scanned the group of children to ensure all were upright and making progress.

A burst of automatic fire sounded to the right. “Down!” Aric shouted. Immediately hundreds of terrified, squealing children and the handful of adults dropped into the mud.

Hadassah glimpsed the steel helmets of two German soldiers pressed into a hill north of the tree line. Armed with submachine guns, they sprayed bullets into the air just above their heads, keeping children and adults pinned to the earth.

Yaakov, Morty, and Aric returned fire, but the soldiers hidden on the slope had the advantage. They toyed with their prey; each time Hadassah or one of the others tried to rise, the guns let loose with another round of bullets.

She waited in the mud alongside Joseph and the little girl. The odor of decaying earth filled her nostrils and felt cold and wet against her cheek. Beyond the slope, the fighting had quieted. She wondered if her people were successful or if the Germans overtook them despite such greater numbers.

Hadassah didn’t see Aric toss the grenade, but she heard its explosion. The two German soldiers flew through the air like circus tumblers. “Get moving!” Aric shouted.

Both she and Clara helped the children to their feet, then rushed toward the tree line. Yaakov covered the front while Aric and Morty took up the rear.

The group came upon the place where one of the Germans had landed after the blast. Though the soldier’s body remained whole, he didn’t move. As they trudged past him, Hadassah felt
neither triumph nor enmity; only the certainty that he would now have to face God’s justice.

No one saw his hand grope for the holstered pistol at his side, or raise his arm to sight in his retreating enemy.

Everyone crouched low at the first shot of gunfire behind them. Hadassah whirled to see the second round hit her beloved, knocking him to the ground. “Aric!”

Her scream set off a chain reaction as hundreds of youngsters responded in kind to the terror they as yet could not see. Morty finished off the soldier who had fired, and then Hadassah ran to Aric.

By the time she reached him, he’d struggled to his knees. The front of his jacket was covered in blood. “No, no, no . . . !” She dropped down beside him and caught his face in her palms. She saw for the first time his pale weariness and the grime and agony etched into his handsome face. “You must get up, beloved.”

Tears blurred her vision as she struggled to lift one of his limp arms across her shoulders. “I’ll help you, sweetheart. Just lean on me, we’ve got to make it to the trees. Aric, you said we had to get to the trees.”

She was babbling, pulling on him to no avail. He was like trying to move a mountain. “Help me!” she cried, and her uncle and Yaakov hurried toward her.

Morty reached them first and grasped Aric’s other arm.

“Nein,” Aric managed to say. “It’s not good.” Green eyes, dark with pain, turned to her. “You must go, Hadassah. Finish this.”

“I won’t leave you!” Wild with grief, she became unreasonable. “You won’t die!” she sobbed. “Please, beloved, you can’t die!”

“Don’t, Süsse,” he said, his voice anguished. “Don’t do this . . .”

Hadassah’s breath sliced through her lungs as she pressed closer, breathing in his familiar scent, mingled now with the stench of blood and dank earth. When she’d managed to calm down, he sought her out for a kiss, one more tender than any she’d known.

“I love you,” he whispered against her mouth. “Always . . .”

Fresh pain stabbed at her. “Aric—”

“You have to . . . save them.” His breathing took effort as he turned to gaze at the hundreds of wide-eyed, grimy-faced children watching them. “They need you.”

She pulled his face back to her. “I need you!”

Dark lashes fluttered against his cheeks, and his body leaned heavily against her. He brushed a bloodied hand across the side of her face before opening his eyes to her. His jaw clenched. “Get her . . . out of here.”

“Aric!” She fought the strong hands dragging her back toward the forest, away from the man she loved. As if living a nightmare, she watched him sway slightly on his knees, then collapse face-first into the muddied earth.

Hadassah’s world ceased to exist; she went limp in their arms.

“Daughter, get up!”

Morty’s voice. Vague and disconnected, it was part of the same nightmare. She turned and gaped at him.

“We must hurry the children, Hadassah. Soldiers are coming!”

Children . . .
Hadassah struggled to comprehend Morty’s words, the urgency in them. She caught a glimpse of a dozen or so German soldiers circling to block their escape into the woods. Aric’s voice seemed to permeate the damp air.
“You must go, Hadassah. Finish this
. . . . They need you.”

A rapid burst of gunfire sprayed above their heads. Children squealed in terror behind her, and Hadassah swung around to see a small body crumple to the ground.

It was the little girl from the ghetto.

“Nooooo!”
Hadassah screamed as she kicked and clawed at the arms holding her. She bellowed curses at Morty, at Yaakov, even at God, before she broke free and wrenched the machine gun from her surprised uncle’s grasp.

“No more, do you hear me?” She rose to her feet and aimed the weapon at the wall of soldiers. “No more lambs!”

She squeezed the trigger, her body jerking backward with the impact of rapid shots. Hadassah kept firing, ignoring the whine of enemy bullets racing past her, unmoved by the sight of gray-uniformed men toppling into the mud like so much trampled grass.

Even after they all lay dead and her ammunition was spent, she kept pressing the trigger.

“Enough, child.” Morty pried the weapon from her hands. “We need to go. Quickly.”

Joseph ran up and clutched her tightly around the waist. Hadassah’s anger faded at the sight of his frightened features. “It’s all right.” Her voice shook as she held him. “They can’t hurt us anymore.”

She helped to gather together the other children, all of whom had become eerily quiet. Hundreds of muddy, tear-streaked faces gaped at her with awe and apprehension.

Hadassah crouched beside the fallen little girl. She wished she’d known the child’s name. “For you, Anna,” she whispered, reaching to touch the dark, baby-soft curls.

Rising, she looked back at the place where Aric lay unmoving.

“Don’t go back, daughter,” Morty warned, reading her intent. “The past cannot help us now. Our only chance for life lies ahead with the future.”

He was my
future,
Hadassah wanted to tell him. But she glanced at the helpless little faces around her and knew her uncle was right. “We
will
finish this,” she said in a torn voice. “My beloved’s death will not be wasted.”

Taking Joseph by the hand, she marched the children through the cold Ukrainian slog, past fallen soldiers toward the safety of the forest. Toward the future and freedom.

She never once looked back.

 50 

Esther’s decree confirmed . . . Purim, and it was written down in the records.

Esther 9:32

L
VOV
, C
ITY
OF
L
IONS

S
alvation
—a word spoken reverently among the bedridden at St. Nicholas’s hospital, and a reminder that the “Battle of Susa,” as it was now called, had been declared an unprecedented victory for the Jews of Theresienstadt.

Even the Russians seemed pleased. The ghetto people had spared them the expense of precious munitions and troops to defeat the German forces at Przemysl. That Lvov until recently had struck its own fist of cruelty against the Jews didn’t deter the conquering Red Army from opening its gates. The Reds provided food and medical attention, and cooperated with leaders like Morty Benjamin and Yaakov Kadlec to obtain temporary housing for the thousands of refugees.

Salvation.
It was in that same breath they whispered
her
name. She who had fought for their cause. She whom God had chosen to lead them out of hell.

The prophecy had come true.

The days stretched into weeks, and the weeks into months, while the stories of her courage grew bolder with each retelling, her sacrifices greater. How she’d stood amidst a hailstorm of enemy gunfire and single-handedly destroyed an entire legion of German soldiers. How her fearlessness changed the course of battle and encouraged the Jews to defeat their enemy at Przemysl in one final, relentless blow. The wonder of her deeds spread far and wide, offering hope to those surviving the aftermath of battle, and strength to those who had yet to confront it.

None knew of her sorrow or comprehended the dark smudges beneath her eyes. The creases bracketing her soft mouth merely heightened her glory and attributed to her selflessness as she nursed them back to health, dressing their wounds and comforting their losses.

After all,
she
had saved them.

“You look like you need a rest.” Clara Brenner drew up beside Hadassah and placed a hand on her shoulder. They both wore the sterile white uniform of a nurse’s aide. “I think fresh air might do you good.”

“I could use a little daylight,” Hadassah admitted. “I feel as though I’ve been in a cave for the past week.”

“That’s because you
have
been in a cave,” Clara said with a wave at their dismal surroundings.

The basement of Lvov’s hospital had been converted into a makeshift ward to accommodate the enormous influx of wounded. To Hadassah, the place was a concrete tomb, complete with gloomy shadows outside the glare of naked lights, and a damp mustiness that mixed with carbolic to mask the stench of human sweat and blood. And its occupants were the winding-sheet that smothered Hadassah in praise she didn’t want or deserve.

Two months had passed and still these people extolled her as some modern-day Moses delivering the Jews out of Egypt. They didn’t know how she’d wanted to give up in those final moments, watching her beloved die . . .

“You haven’t left this ward in days,” Clara prodded. “Why not go upstairs to the terrace? Last time I looked, the sky was as clear blue as your eyes.”

Blue . . . like
Austria.
The ache in Hadassah’s heart hadn’t dimmed. She tried smiling at Clara but managed only a nod. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.

“Take your time. You might find as I did that the fresh air heals what ails you better than any medicine.” Compassion shone in Clara’s eyes. She had also known great loss. A mother left behind . . .

Hadassah fled to the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Leaning against the wrought-iron rail of the terrace, Hadassah gazed out at the surrounding hills. The Ceaseless White was gone, and in its place, budding leaves of birch, hornbeam, and maple spread like a verdant mantle as far as the eye could see.

She breathed in the fresh air warmed by the sun, and for a few precious moments felt lifted from the weight of her grief. From her precipice she could see into the heart of the city below: cobbled streets amidst Baroque-style buildings, with tulips and daffodils and lilacs bursting into lavish color as basketfuls spilled from balconies, windowsills, and doorways. Pink bricks surrounded the large
Ploscha Rynok
, Lvov’s market square, and blushed with a rosy golden hue in the afternoon light.

Yet beyond the picturesque town and green hills, the war still raged. Even the gentle cooing of pigeons, scrapping for morsels between cracks in the hospital’s stone terrace, could not block out the distant howl of shellfire.

For now, though, it seemed vague to her. Like winter, little more than a memory, vanquished in the green of newly formed leaves, forgotten in the sunny warmth that kissed her skin.

Hadassah’s nightmares had become worn and distant as well, as though years, and not months, had passed since her first glimpse of Dachau’s barbed-wire fences; years, not months,
since she’d stood naked and cold, clutching a child’s hand while she waited to die. A lifetime since she’d been loved by a man so profoundly that he would surrender his life to save hers.

She reached inside the voluminous pocket of her nurse’s apron to touch the cool surface of the Bible she still carried, where she continued to keep his precious photograph.
“You hold my past as well
as my future.”

She choked back a sound that was half sob, half laughter. Surviving months of abuse, starvation, squalor, and afterward living among the enemy, she’d somehow managed to overcome impossible odds to save her people. Yet in the past two months she’d never felt more afraid or uncertain in her life. How could she face the future without Aric?

Hadassah closed her eyes and tipped her face toward the sun. She’d asked God this question many times since his death. Her heart still waited for an answer.

“Mama!”

Hadassah spun around to see Joseph at the doorway leading onto the terrace. The child worked like a soothing balm on her grief. His bruises and cuts had long ago healed, and she felt pleased at his easy adjustment to their new way of life. She only wished Aric could have been with them, especially in the years to come, to help guide this boy through the complexities of approaching adolescence and manhood.

Hadassah sighed. For now, he was still a child, hopping back and forth on the balls of his feet. His face broke into a grin. “You look ready to burst,” she said, finding a smile for him.

“I have a surprise,” he sang out, half running in her direction. When he stood before her, he said, “It’s an engagement gift. One of the injured soldiers asked me to give it to you.”

Hadassah flinched. Since their arrival at the hospital, her popularity had escalated—especially with the wounded. Several men had even asked for her hand in marriage. Though she probably should be flattered by their offers, it only exacerbated her
pain. The only man she wanted to marry—the man who held the other part of her soul—was gone.

Blinking back tears, she crouched to his level. “Please, kaddishel, whatever it is, take it back.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I don’t want . . .”

She stopped speaking when Joseph held out his fist and opened it. Against his palm lay a single pearl.

The world began to spin. Hadassah, still crouched, grabbed for the boy to steady her balance. Then slowly she stood, and her heart felt wedged in her throat as she took the pearl from him. Images flashed through her mind . . . the indomitable soldier in black who first gazed up at her second-story window in Dachau . . . then a man, clad in brown sweater and slacks, his smile and green eyes full of warmth and mischief and the promise of a snowball fight. A pledge made to her while on his knees . . . a kiss on a train to seal their souls . . .

. . . a mud-streaked face, full of pain and anguish, kissing her for the very last time . . .

She stared at the pearl, afraid to look away for fear that if she did, the gem might vanish, along with her memories of him.

“Mama, he’s here.”

Hadassah looked up then—and spied a tall man watching her from the terrace doorway. His features were unrecognizable; the tanned face was extremely thin and lined with exhaustion, while his strange, homespun clothing fit loosely against his frame.

He pushed away from the doorjamb and moved in her direction.

She noticed his limp.

“Hadassah,” he called softly. Then he stopped and opened his arms.

“Aric!” Sobbing, she ran to him. Tears blurred her vision as she threw her arms around him and buried her face against his neck, reveling in his solid presence. Her body trembled as she breathed in his familiar scent of pine, spice, and Kaffee. Her beloved was alive!

His strong arms encircled her while his chin came to rest gently against the top of her head. Aric held her tightly, whispering soothing words to try and quiet her sobs. But when she finally looked up at him, Hadassah only cried harder.

“My love, please don’t . . .” he said brokenly before he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that silenced her cries. She melted against him, meeting his passion with her own while the salt of their tears mingled together. It was as if a missing part of her had been found. The broken shards of their souls mended to become whole again.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” she whispered when their kiss ended.

“I thought so, too.” His breathing labored as he leaned his forehead against hers. “But it seems God had other plans,” he added with a smile in his voice.

She leaned back and searched his face. “Where have you been? How have you survived all this time?”

“Resistance fighters,” he answered. “Apparently our arrival at Przemysl preempted their plans to attack. When they finally did show up to make prisoners of any remaining soldiers, they found me. Fortunately, several of our own who had fled to the woods came forward, so I was taken to a church in the village of Karpaty, in the Ukraine, where they brought in a doctor to patch me up. Afterward they hid me away with a crofter up in the foothills until I was strong enough to leave.

“Now I am here. For you, beloved.” He kissed her again. “And our boy.” He turned to extend his hand to Joseph, who hovered shyly several feet away. “Come here, son.”

The child ran to them, his flushed face wreathed in a smile. Hadassah and Aric both pulled him into the circle of their embrace.

“Aric, what will happen now . . . to us?” Hadassah asked, trying to stem her sudden feeling of anxiousness. “Germany is losing the war. You’ll be hunted down. Where will we go?”

“For now, we’ll leave for Switzerland. Rand and Helen are waiting for us there.” He paused. “After the war . . .”

He gave her a pensive look. “God has forgiven me, Hadassah, though I know I don’t deserve it. He’s gifted me with more than I ever dreamed—a chance to start over again, a new sense of hope, and the faith I thought I’d lost long ago.” He smiled. “He gave me you.” Then he reached down to tousle Joseph’s hair. “And a son.

“But the world will still hold me accountable for taking part in Hitler’s scheme,” he continued. “Even now, when I think of the apathy I once held toward your people, it grieves me. If I’d had your courage, I could have done so much more. . . .” He let out a ragged breath. “When the war is over, I must face whatever justice metes out—”

“You won’t face it alone, my son.”

Hadassah turned to see her uncle approach, along with Yaakov Kadlec. “We will be there, too. We’ll tell them of your actions and how you saved us all. I believe they will listen. After all”—her tatteh smiled—“God is on our side.”

“Yes, He is,” Hadassah said, and as she tucked the pearl into her apron pocket, she laid her palm against the miraculous Bible that held the photograph she would soon return to her beloved. The story of Elijah rose in her mind. “Whatever our future holds, Aric, God will be there to guide us,” she said, gazing up at the man she loved. “We have only to listen.”

A soft breeze arose at that moment, steady and sweet across the hills of Lvov. And Hadassah smiled, hearing His whisper.